I'm further out than I need to be, but...

See, back when I was doing some research about Wal Mart, I came across some information that was a little arcane and obscure for most regular cocktail party rants I might make about the retail behemoth's shortcomings (in my mind). It is my usual anti-Wal-mart fare to talk about their under-insured workers, or forced overtime or discrimination towards women and so forth. No, this is a little more indepth and even bordered on conspiracy theory radical. See, what I found out while looking up info on the Securities and Exchange website, is that while Wal-mart is a publically traded company, all of its holdings are off-shore. They have not 1, not 2, but at least 5 offshore banks. Mostly Cayman island accounts- one in Euros, one in British Sterling, one in gold. You get the picture. Or do you? None of their money is in US banks. This is where my paranoia crept in and came up with a possible, although not so probable at the time, theory.
What if, I said, there was some sort of financial meltdown, and somehow China and Japan and several other countries, called in the debt. You know- that 5 trillion dollar thing that has grown into being since 2000. The same debt that is being bought up and serviced by countries like China (well over 50% is owned in treasury bills by foreign countries). I mean, what are the chances really? What, besides an entire global crisis, or the chance to own our resources and land, and people, would make China do such a thing? And let's say for the sake of argument they do call in this chunk of change- where does the US government turn to pay the bill? I mean, will China take "we're bankrupt" for an answer? So, the US turns to its banks for the cash. Whoops. They have extended so many bad mortgages and credit lines that they too are out of cash! So, let's go to the largest, most profitable industries and companies to loan the US the cash they need- in fact, let's assume they are unwilling, and for the sake of keeping us from having to turn over the deed to Alaska, we take action to actually seize some of their assets. Guess what? We can't touch most of those funds (which would be substantial) because they are held off shore. So, while Wal-mart (and their friends who do the same things) will have all the money they can make by continuing to inflate the trade deficit by consuming Chinese products, they may not have a country in which to continue their enterprise. Although, maybe communist China will change their stance on private enterprise when they own us.
NOW, before you all give me great instructive comments on how that can't really happen, and I am woefully ignorant on my international trade knowledge, please keep in mind that I am talking far out "what-ifs", and I already said it is improbable. I am just spinning a larger hyperbolic narrative to say that sometimes we should pay attention to little details like where the largest US private employer keeps its money. And, which of the two possible next administrations is likely to change how that happens, and which is likely to pretend there is no problem while pushing its cart down the mega-store aisle.